Arsenal U18s salvage point against Southampton, whilst Hayden and Yennaris train with first-team

U18 Premier League- Game 11

Southampton 2 (Sims, Seager) Arsenal 2 (Smith, Iwobi)

Renny Smith scored his first goal for the U18s.Photo by Kieran Clarke

Arsenal U18s recovered from an atrocious start to salvage a point away to Southampton this morning.

Coach Carl Laraman made six changes from the side that lost to Manchester City a fortnight ago, with Ryan Huddart, Tafari Moore, Jack Jebb, Dan Crowley, Alex Iwobi and Kaylen Hinds all receiving re-calls.

Huddart

Moore-Wright-Siemann-Uade

Smith-Jebb

Dawkins-Crowley-Iwobi

Hinds

subs: Willock, Mavididi.

Southampton raced into a two-goal lead after just two minutes, with Josh Sims evading several challenges to score before Ryan Seager seized upon a loose ball to fire emphatically past Huddart and double the home side’s advantage.

Southampton then almost found the net again, but Arsenal responded with a chance of their own when Crowley did well to find Tarum Dawkins, but the winger couldn’t direct his effort on target. Crowley then went for goal himself and came close with an audacious effort, before Jebb saw his well-struck free-kick saved by the Southampton goalkeeper.

Arsenal were starting to find their way back into the game and thought that they had reduced the deficit when Dawkins found the net, but the strike was ruled out for offside. Arsenal’s persistence eventually prevailed, though, with Hinds doing well to find Renny Smith, who finished adroitly.

Crowley then almost equalised after embarking upon a mazy run, but Arsenal’s second eventually came just after the break when Iwobi scored with the help of a deflection.

Southampton were disheartened at squandering their lead, but seemed desperate to restore it, with Huddart forced to make a last-ditch save. Arsenal could have won it late on, however, with substitute Stephy Mavididi seeing his effort palmed onto the crossbar.

Arsenal, despite fighting back to earn a point, have now not won at this level in their last ten attempts. They host Chelsea at London Colney next Saturday.

Schoolboy Chris Toonga, meanwhile, has completed a move to Southampton. The midfielder, who is a product of the club’s Hale End Academy, made one appearance for Arsenal U18s last season but wasn’t called upon this campaign.

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Source: Ben Hoskins/Getty Images Europe

Nico Yennaris and Isaac Hayden trained with the first-team at London Colney this morning as Arsene Wenger’s side made their final preparations for tomorrow’s trip to face Manchester United at Old Trafford. Mathieu Flamini and Jack Wilshere both came through the training session unscathed, but it remains to be seen whether the pair will travel to Manchester. Abou Diaby, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Yaya Sanogo, Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski are all still unavailable.

Apparently, Burton’s running the show until we decide on a new director. I hope we bring in someone foreign. I am sure Burton’s an upgrade on Brady, but there has got to better people out there than both of them. The club needs to make sure the bring in the best guy they can and not whoever is the cheapest.

Jorge,
The feeling that I have is that more players are cut and many seems to be cut earlier than previously.
Is it me or is AFC much more ruthless or decisive in getting rid of academy players?
If my impression is correct any idea why the sudden change in attitude?
Do you think that new 25 men premiership team with 8 home grown players rule means that AFC tries to get players at 17/18 years so if they make it they would be considered as homegrown?
If that is so, then the new rule has had the exact opposite effect that they were supposed to.
I suspect that Chelsea and Manchester City with their new policy of buying 16-17 years old from all over the world may have made the same reasoning.

For teams who can afford it will certainly bring in more players and let go of those who are not good enough. But the smaller teams like westham, southamton, villa and so on will benefit from it and actually bring through good youth players. We will for sure see more teams approaching our Hale end academy players. Jordan brown, chris toonga and the one to city are examples of actually good players from Hale end. We have tons of players from other clubs who come as 16-17 years old and that rule must have change our mind a bit.

At least there will be 5-6 in the U18 from Hale end who will go to U21 every other year. From there on you will have to be a world class talent and lucky with injuries to make it all the way to our first team.